Fifteen movies to watch over and over and over.

It's the middle of January.

This means the following things are totally, completely, and utterly true:

1.  I'm grumpy.
2.  It's flipping cold.  Except when it's not.  Then it's irritatingly warm.
3.  I'm stupidly sick with some unavoidable cough/drainage/mucousy stuff that I have had every January since the beginning of time.
4.  Really all I want to do right now is lay in bed, watch bad movies and eat mashed potatoes.
5.  I'm grumpy.

I'm thinking there's a pretty good chance I have just a touch of that Seasonal Affective Disorder stuff, because I can't remember a January that I didn't feel like this to some degree.  It may also be the vestiges of a post-holiday season retail manager hangover, which I still experience occasionally like phantom limb pain or something.

This year I've decided to give in to it a little bit.  Usually when I feel like this I might stick my nose (and my crabby, crabby mind) in a good book, but since I finished the last Dresden booknothing has interested me much.

So I've been watching bad tv (let's hear it for Restaurant Impossible!) just for background noise and in order to avoid... well, pretty much everything. But the Food Network can really only keep me going for so long, so I've started re-watching some movies that are old favorites.  I think most people have a list of movies that when you see it on tv, NO MATTER WHAT, you will drop everything and watch it for just a little while - ok, until the bitter end - and it usually leaves you feeling like you just had a nice chat with an old friend.  It doesn't hurt that you can recite most of the lines right along with the actors, either.

Yeah, I have a list like that too.  So here, in no particular order, are the fifteen movies that I can (and do!) watch over and over.

1. UHF  Yes, it stars Weird Al.  Yes, it has a TERRIBLE plot.  It doesn't matter.  Any time I've been asked to name my favorite movies, this one has made the list.  From Raoul's Wild Kingdom - FLY FIFI, FLY! - to WHEEL. OF. FISH. to "Supplies!" to Stanley Kowalski's mop, this is probably the movie I quote the most often, randomly, without warning, and often at wildly inopportune times.

2.  Coal Miner's Daughter If you've ever read my blog before, you know I'm a huge country music fan, but aside from the music, this movie is crazy important to me for one reason - it started my lifelong love affair with Tommy Lee Jones.  Apparently dry, irascible old men are my thing.

3.  Blazing Saddles  I've never met a Mel Brooks movie I didn't love, but this one is hands down my favorite.  It's wonderfully inappropriate and pee-your-pants funny.  It was also considered HIGHLY controversial when it was released in 1974 (a VERY good year, by the way), and may be even more so now, but I don't love it for it's political correctness and politeness.  I love it because it never fails to make me laugh, even though I can clearly see how terrible it really is.

4.  Top Gun It's Tom Cruise before he got all weird and started jumping all over Oprah's furniture and accepting roles for which he was not suited (I'm looking at you, Jack Reacher).  It's hot guys in white uniforms singing to deserving women.  But more importantly, it's Goose.  Gah, I love Goose.

5.  Footloose - the original, of course.  What's better than a coming of age story about religion, judgey small town life (a subject I'm a bit of an expert on, by the way), great music and dancing? Nothing, in my opinion.  Nothing at all.  

6.  Gone with the WindEverybody's always "Scarlett this" and "Scarlett that" but to be honest, I think she's a brat. I'm really more of a Melanie fan.  She's sweet, kind, pure and good.  Such a shame about the dying part, though.  Oops. I guess that's what's known as a "spoiler," huh?

7.  To Kill a MockingbirdGreat books do not always equal great movies.  However, this is a major exception to that rule.  Gregory Peck is SUPERB in this movie, and if I had to guess, I'd say I've watched this movie a hundred times.  True confession time - I pushed HARD to name one of my kids "Atticus."  Sadly, I lost.  Also, I'm still bitter about it.  

8.  The Shawshank RedemptionHere's another great example of how a good book CAN be made into a good movie.  Hollywood, take note.  It can be done.   This is, in my humble opinion, Morgan Freeman's best role out of a million fantastic ones.  

9.  Lonesome DoveI mentioned irascible old men were kinda my thing, right?  Robert Duvall, Tommy Lee Jones, cowboys, justice... all the things I love.  Now TECHNICALLY this is a mini-series, but it's my list and I want Lonesome Dove on it.  So there.

10.  The IncrediblesYeah, it's a cartoon.  Yeah, it's about super heroes.  But it's so so much more.  It's actually a pretty complex story about how marriages change over time, about finding your place in the world, and about doing hard things and making sacrifices to keep your family safe.  I cry every single time I watch it.  Which is pretty often.

11.  Great Balls of Fire!Jerry Lee Lewis was tortured and brilliant and damaged and that's just my kind of thing.  Also, Dennis Quaid.... Wowza.  And when that guy that looks JUST like a young Elvis shows up in his Army uniform and says "Just take it.  Take it all." I get chills every single time.

12.  JFKA three+ hour movie about history would not normally be my thing, but I've always had such a fascination with the Kennedys that this one holds my attention time and time and time again.  And we still don't really know what happened, do we?  Not really.

13.  OverboardThis is one of those movies in which the plot can't hold water, the acting is marginal... yet inexplicably, I still love.  I think it's because the deep theme in it is that people really can change. Also, Kurt Russell in a wife beater and overalls doesn't hurt.

14.  HoosiersWhen I was a kid, my entire elementary school got to go to the theater to see this movie right after it came out, and for a poor rural elementary school like mine, this was a BIG deal.  I remember how the small theater was full of kindergarten through eighth graders who fidgeted during all the "talking" parts and cheered loudly and wildly during all the basketball scenes.  When I watched the movie again as a grown-up, it struck me how bizarre a choice that was to take a group of elementary school kids to, but I also fell truly, madly and deeply in love with Dennis Hopper's character, and he continues to be the star for me.

15.  Big Trouble in Little ChinaHere's one more "bad plot, terrible acting" example that I inexplicable love.  Hey, I can't explain it; I just live it.

How about you?  Are there movies that you can watch over and over and over?  Let me know - I need a few more to add to my list ;)

This post contains affiliate links.  Just trying to keep the lights on here, yo.

Rules of the sleepover.

Don't they look sweet and innocent here?

My boys have always been good sleepers.

By eight weeks old they were both sleeping through the night - seven to eight hours at a time - with no drugs, sorcery or "crying it out" involved.

I did, and still do, consider myself VERY blessed by this particular fortune.

They have continued to be good sleepers at night.  Naps have always been anybody's guess and vary wildly from day to day, though.

So anyway, a couple weeks ago when they asked me if they could have a sleepover in Cooper's room, I said "Sure, why not?" because I assumed they would be good sleepers TOGETHER just as much as they were good sleepers SEPARATELY.

You can see where this is going, right?

I even prepped them beforehand.

Right before bedtime, I called them over to me and said, "Guys, I want to talk to you about the rules of the sleepover, ok?  Rule number one of the sleepover, you DO NOT talk about the sleepover."  This elicited completely blank stares from them, and I made a mental reminder to show them Fight Club some time in the near future.  I can't have my kids being pop culture deficient, can I?

So I continued. "Ok, forget that one.  Rule number one of the sleepover: What happens at the sleepover stays at the sleepover."  Blank stares from them again.  It's like they were raised in a barn or something. Sigh...  I expounded on this a bit.  "That means get along, stay in the room, be quiet, and no tattling."

They seemed to grasp this one a little better. "But what if I have to pee?" asked Zachary.  "Do I just pee in Cooper's room?  Maybe on the floor?"

"Um, no.  You may leave the room only in the event that you need to pee," I responded.  "Or poop," I added quickly, because I can still OCCASIONALLY outsmart them.

"Ok, now who can tell me the rules of the sleepover?" I asked.  "DON'T POOP ON THE FLOOR!" Cooper shouted.

Eh.  Close enough.  That's a good rule to follow pretty much all the time, so I let it slide on that.  After all, they are GOOD sleepers.

So I tucked them in, reminded them to get some sleep and closed the door on their sleepover.  An hour or so later, I peeked my head in to check on them and they were fast asleep.  Smugly patting myself on the back, I went to bed.

Fast forward three hours...

I was abruptly roused from my slumber by what must be... "Oh my god how did ELEPHANTS get in my house?!?!  R, get the elephant gun!  We've been invaded!  Do you hear that?!?!"  R rolled over long enough to mumble "It's the boys," then fell promptly back asleep.

I crept cautiously into Cooper's room where I was greeted by both boys, wide awake, lights on, music blaring.  "LOOK MAMA!  US IS DANCING!" Cooper yelled.  And indeed they were.  I told them it was 1am and that dancing was firmly prohibited before 7am, so they needed to go back to bed and to sleep.

2am:  I wake again, this time to the sound of a door slamming.  Repeatedly.  I marched toward the booming sound, and found Zachary on the outside of the door pushing it shut and opening it over and over, while Cooper hung from the doorknob on the inside.  "WHAT ARE YOU DOING????!!!?!?!?!" I shouted asked calmly, to which Zachary replied, "Oh, it's ok, Mama, we're just playing hide and seek."   Oh well, if that's all it is, then carry on.

3am: I hear yelling.  And crying.  And more yelling.  Assuming that they are being abducted by a stranger, a monster, an alien or a zombie, I run into the room, only to find them sitting innocently on the bed, looking at me innocently and being all innocent.  "GO TO FLIPPING SLEEP RIGHT FLIPPING NOW!" I yelled.  When I crawled back in bed, R asked me "What are you yelling about?"

4am: I wake to barking.  "Oh, it's just the dog," I think, then close my eyes to go back to sleep... "WAIT! WE DON'T HAVE A DOG!"  When I go into their room this time, Cooper greets me with a growl and tries to lick my face.  "Us is playing puppy!" he says joyfully.

I'm not sure I ever really slept again after that.  After firmly telling them that I didn't want to hear a peep from them until the sun was up, they both remembered the bathroom loophole and had to pee about 47 times each over the next couple hours.

Finally around 6am I gave up, made them breakfast and drank a couple gallons of coffee.  Once I was feeling slightly human again, I asked them "Did you guys enjoy your sleepover?"

"It was the BEST!" Zachary answered.  "Can we do it again tonight?"

Hell no, kid.

HELL. NO.

The Great Pretzel Incident of 2012

When zj was a pre-schooler, I LOATHED going shopping with him.  He hated to sit in the cart, screamed like a banshee when I tried to buckle him in, would unbuckle himself, climb down and run away from me every chance he got, and he went through an unfortunate phase when he would see a man - any man - and start screaming "DADDY!!!  DADDY!!!  PLEASE COME BACK!!!  I WUVVVV YOU!!!"

Cj is a bit more laid back, and shopping of any kind is usually fun.  We shop for clothes, we shop for groceries, we shop for whatever, and he sits quietly in the cart, oohing and aahing over endcap displays, bright lights on the ceiling and pink ruffly things.   Oh, we might have an occasional run-in with an old person regarding eye color, but he really can't be blamed for that.  She totally started it.

Anyway, fast forward to one day last week.  We had successfully completed a stop at Kroger, and stop at Home Depot and a stop at Sam's Club, and I wanted to make a quick trip into Big Lots to look at their gardening stuff.  Really, it was gonna be quick.

I should have realized that cj had reached his shopping threshold for the day when he started saying "Go home now, Mama?" to me in the car, but I was blinded by the possibility of cheap things to plant flowers in, colorful trellises (trelli?) and other shiny things to hang around my house, and I really, really wanted to go in there.  Never mind that it was an hour past nap time and he hadn't had lunch yet.

"Last stop baby.  I promise.  Here, you can ever ride the horsey BEFORE we go in.  Won't that be fun?"

It WAS fun.  And even though he whined a bit more than I was used to when he got off the horse, I soldiered on.  After all, I had FLOWER POTS to buy.

And then, then as we were slowly making our way past the food stuff to the back of the store where the gardening prizes was located, IT HAPPENED.

Cj spotted a bag of chocolate covered pretzels, which just happen to be his favorite things in the entire world.

"Us get prenzels?" he asked sweetly, batting his big brown eyes at me.  Where on earth do kids learn this stuff?

"No, Not today.  We have pretzels at home," I answered reasonably, then kept walking along.  I could see the shiny yard things from across the store, and I was not going to be derailed. 

"PRENZELS.  PWEASE."  He said, this time a little louder.

"No, no pretzels today," I responded firmly.

And then it happened.  

"PRENZELS PRENZELS PRENZELS PRENZELS PRENZELS PRENZELSPRENZELS PRENZELS PRENZELSPRENZELS PRENZELS PRENZELSPRENZELS PRENZELS PRENZELSWAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" 

The shrieking was so loud and so piercing and so intense that everyone in the store immediately stopped shopping and came and stood in a circle around us to stare and to point at us and to talk about my poor parenting skills.  Well, that's what it felt like, anyway.

My attempts to shush him were totally futile.  Totally futile.  Totally.  So I grabbed the bag, ripped it open, and shoved a pretzel in his mouth.

Back when I was a good parent, ya know, before I actually HAD kids, I used to frown superiorly at people in the grocery who were letting their kids eat the box of crackers or cookies or the grapes or whatever.  THE NERVE!  Those things weren't even PAID for!

We skipped the gardening section and headed straight for the register.  The cashier never even blinked when I pried the grimy, wrinkled, chocolate covered bag from his hands long enough for her to scan.  I mumbled something vague about "low blood sugar" and hightailed it out of there.

Once we were in the car, cj promptly fell asleep, his pretzels still in a death grip in his grubby little hands.

Poor kid, I guess all that screaming wore him out.

"Thanks for calling Poison Control."

"Poison Control, this is Sandy how-may-I-help-you?"

"Um, yes, um, well, my kid just drank some shampoo.  That's not bad, is it?"

Sandy: laughs a little "Well, it's not good, but it's not usually too serious.  How old is your child?"

Me: "He's two and a half."

Sandy: "And what's his name?"

Me: "Um, do you really need to know that?  I mean, if you think he's ok I'll just let you go and deal with some other really bad mom who let her kid eat bar soap or something.  That stuff is HARSH on my skin so I can only imagine what..."

Sandy: interrupting "It's totally confidential and for follow-up purposes only.  So, what's his name?"

Me: "Uh, Fred?"

Sandy:  "Ok, and you said Fred drank some shampoo.  Did you see this happen?"

Me: "OH MY GOD STOP JUDGING ME! HE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ASLEEP! PLUS HE HAD TO TOTALLY MOVE THREE PIECES OF FURNITURE AND STACK THEM UP TO GET TO THE DRAWER IT WAS IN!  AND HE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ASLEEP!"

Sandy: soothingly "Ok, nobody here is judging you.  These kinds of things happen all the time with little ones.  I was only asking that question so we could determine how much shampoo he drank."

Me: "Oh.  Well, the bottle was still half full, and he had a lot in his hair, and there was a lot on the floor, too.  I wouldn't have even thought he had any to drink except he was, uh, ya know, burping bubbles?"

Sandy: "Oh my.  Has he vomited yet?"

Me: "No."

Sandy: "Well, he probably will.  You should give him something light to drink, like Kool Aid, and then watch him closely for the next hour or so.  If he doesn't vomit today, he may have some stomach discomfort and diarrhea tomorrow."

Me: "WHAT KIND OF PARENT DO YOU THINK I AM? I DON'T LET MY KIDS DRINK KOOL AID.  THAT STUFF IS FULL OF SUGAR AND ALL KINDS OF UNNATURAL STUFF!"

Sandy: "Well, juice or water would be fine, too."

Me: sulkily "Ok.  I'll give him some juice."

Sandy: "He should be just fine.  Now I just need to get a little more information from you. What's your zip code?"

Me: "Uh, 00000?"

Sandy: sighing "Ok, and can I get a phone number so I can call you back in an hour or so to check up on how little Fred is doing?"

Me: "Uh, 555-1212?"

Sandy: "Thanks for calling Poison Control.  You have a good day."

Me: CLICK.

When nap time goes really, really wrong.

It was a peaceful Saturday afternoon at 154 Hidden Court.

Cj had just gone down for a nap - thankfully - Zj and I were in the kitchen.

I was making some of my near-famous potato salad and playing pretend with zj at the same time.  Zj was Batman, and I was Catwoman, which means he was jumping and screaming all around me and I just had to look bored and meow occasionally.  It's no problem really, I do that all the time anyway.

We were going on about our business, playing and cooking, cooking and playing, until zj stops dead still, looking toward the living room, and whispered "Uh, Mama."

There are few things that will get my attention quicker than zj a) being still and b) being quiet.

At that very moment, cj rounded the corner of the breakfast bar, and he was covered... I mean COVERED in blood.  It was in his hair.  It was all over his face.  It was on his hands.  Covered.

He looked like something out of a bad horror movie, except instead of red-tinted corn syrup, the blood was real.

He looked like someone had slaughtered a goat all over him, where goat = cj.

I grabbed him and sat him on the kitchen counter, and immediately began to wipe the blood off to find the source.

He wasn't particularly upset, or even crying, so I immediately suspected shock due to blood loss.

My mind was going a hundred miles an hour.

Ok, should I call 911 or just put him in the car and drive him to the ER? I should call RJ to meet us there... but that can wait.  Oh dear lord where is all this blood coming from?  Maybe a scalp wound? Those bleed a lot.  Nope.  Maybe inside his mouth?  Maybe he bit his tongue in half?  Nope. Ok, when I find the source, what do you do for bleeding? Pressure? Ice? Tourniquet? Vodka? Maybe for me.  Oh Jesus why did I spend the entire time in my Safety and First Aid class in college flirting with RJ instead of paying attention?  Ok, It's not on his face or head that I can see.  Let me check for puncture wounds on his body...  

And on, and on, and on.

I finally worked my way all around his body, down his legs and back up to his arms.  On his right thumb, I finally found the source of all the blood.

It was a scratch, very shallow, about a quarter inch square.

Yeah.  That was all.

One measly little scratch that didn't even need stitches.

However, it was right in the crease of his thumb, so every time he moved his hand, it bled a little.  

One Incredible Hulk band-aid later, all was right with the world again.

I didn't see anything in his room that he could have possibly scratched it on, so I chalked it up to a crazy fluke, put him back in bed to finish his nap, and went toward the master bathroom to wash my hands... and I saw this:

I died a little.

Then I threw up in my mouth.

Then I decided that nap time has officially been cancelled.  

Forever.

Why someone ought to rethink those silly "no open liquor containers in the car" laws.

So, the J family is on vacation.

I'm currently sitting in a beautiful condo in beautiful Pawleys Island, SC, just waiting until it hits 80 degrees so we can hit the beach.

It's a hard life.

Really, it's a wonderful, laid-back kind of place.  The kind of place where the beaches are white and clean and empty, the locals are friendly, and nobody expects you to dress for dinner in anything that isn't flip-flops.

Which is a damn good thing, since getting here is a bit... er... stressful.

Fifteen hours.  One car.  One twitchy five year old.  One whiny twenty-two month old.  Two sleep-deprived adults.  Four different sets of directions/gps devices.  Incessant Batman cartoons.  Multiple pillow pets.  An entire electronics department worth of gadgets that beep and squeal and "Mama, this one doesn't work right!!!"  No liquor.

Hell.

Seventh circle.

For real.

They have no idea what's about to happen.

I think I've blocked whole portions of the trip.  It's a whole big long 15 hour day full of repressed memories.  It's for the best.  It's not like I really WANT to remember how I got us lost before we even left our hometown, or how many McDonald's I peed in, or how many Wal-Marts we stopped at before we found one with a gas station...  Hey, we had gift cards.  Gas is $37 a gallon, and our ginormous SUV gets about 2 gallons to the mile.  Don't judge.

I also have no desire to remember how, 30 minutes into the trip, cj started to tug on his carseat straps and yell "HELP! HELP!" at the top of his lungs.  Or how he spent the entire trip, except for the one peaceful hour he passed out, practicing his favorite new words at the top of his lungs, in seeming random order.  "Mine!"  "Bear!"  "Hello!" "Mine bear!"  "Cow!"  "Moo!"  "Nose!"  "Help!"  "Mine nose!"  "Dada!"  "Mama!"  "Mine!"  "Help!"  Or how he yelled "Ouch!" every time we hit a bump in the road.

Proof that he did sleep.  For a minute.

I also don't want to relive how many times zj said "Is there a bafroom nearby?"  Or how many times he peed on the side of the road.  And I especially don't want to remember the church that we stopped at so zj could pee on the tree.  Sorry, Jesus.  No disrespect intended.  But when a 5 year old's gotta go, he's GOTTA GO.  You understand, right?

And mostly, I don't want to remember exactly how many times I got us lost, with the four maps/gps gizmos in hand.

Yeah, totally blocked that.

Nope,  I'm just going to remember the beach and the sand and the sun and the boys having a great time.

And the beer.

I'll probably remember that, too.

The Alphabet Exercise DVD totally kicked my butt. For real.

Yeah, so...

I took up running for about a minute, and even though that didn't work out really, I decided that I could do some low impact stuff to keep up with the good exercise habits I was building.

I had some (unopened) yoga and pilates dvds from years ago, and I decided to give them a try.

I. Hate. Yoga.

I. Hate. Pilates.

They are both boring.  I don't understand it.  I can't do all those moves.  I tip over a lot.  They are boring.  I can never, ever, ever find my center.  I don't even know what my center is.

In a completely unrelated move, I bought the Alphabet Exercise dvd for zj a few weeks ago.  It's a nice little deal where a creepy guy in a purple hat and way too much eye makeup does exercises along with every letter of the alphabet.

I is for isometric.  Really?  That was the best you could do?  

I turned it on for zj the other day, and since cj was down for a nap, I thought to myself "Self, you should get up and move around with your kid.  It's not REAL exercise, but since you have a bum ankle, it will be SOME movement, anyway.  Right, self?  Am I right?"  So I went through the whole thing with zj.  All 26 letters.  By about "N" - which is for "nap" by the way, zj was done.  He told me "Mama, I'm just gonna watch, ok?  But you can do it if you want to."  Thanks, kid.

At that point, I was winded, sweaty, and grouchy.  But Alphabet Exercise Guy was NOT going to get the best of me.  He looked like he could afford to loose a few pounds himself.  And he got a little TOO into the "swooshing" that accompanied "F", which is for flying.  But I'm not here to judge.  I'm just here to win.  And if my competition is THAT guy and a four year old with the attention span of a gnat, I can surely win this one.

So I kept going.  

A few times, I got zj back into it.

We both really enjoyed the twist.  And we got to lie down somewhere toward the end, although I can't remember what letter that was, and I really liked that part.

But after it was all said and done, I had been working out for thirty minutes.  I was tired.  It is probably a pretty good indicator of my overall fitness level when a kid's alphabet dvd can kick my ass like that.   Clearly, I have a lot of work to do in this category.

So bring it, creepy Purple Hat Guy.  

I'm ready for round 2.

I'm pretty sure I have narcolep.. .zzzzzz.

True story.

I was driving home from work one day last week, and I fell asleep at a stoplight.

I.

Fell asleep.

At a stoplight.

I don't think I was asleep for long, but I definitely dozed off.

I awoke to the soothing tones of some horns blaring in my head.

"Hey, stupid!  Go, already!" 

Honk, honk, beep, beep.

Whatever.

Can't you people see I'm busy napping?

Anyway, in retrospect, it seems like a pretty bad place to nap.  A friend of mine often naps in her car, but it's usually when it's parked.  Like, in a parking lot.  Somehow, that seems safer.

Anyway, what I was about to sa...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.....

Superhero Tuesday.

This is zj's new Ironman mask.

This particular photo was taken several hours after bedtime.

For some reason, he believes that I can't tell that he is out of bed as long as his mask is on.

I can tell.

Apparently, eating cake is really hard work.

Nap time isn't really worth it. I promise.

I'm not much of a napper.

If you take out the 18 months I was pregnant (not all at once, thank Jesus), I have probably only taken 20 or so daytime naps in my adult life.

I hear other grownups talk about naps like they are grumpy toddlers in need of a blankie, but it has always seemed like a waste of daylight to sleep when it's not dark.  It's my inner farm girl coming out, I guess.

However, one day last week, I was scheduled to close at work.  I was tired already.  I didn't feel well.  A short nap seemed to be in order.

The preparation was immense.  First, I had to get cj fed, changed and asleep.  Done.

Next, I had to try to prepare zj.

Me:  Zackie, Mama is going to take a nap.  Can you watch tv for a little while?
ZJ:  Mama, it isn't nap time.  It isn't dark yet.  I think we should call Daddy and ask him.
Me:  It's ok baby.  Daddy doesn't care.
ZJ:  Mama, last night I dreamed about a snake and a chair and a superhero and a cape and my bedroom and a couch and my tv and a llama and some ice cream.
Me:  Nobody really cares, sweetheart.  Mama wants to take a nap, ok?
ZJ: Why do you sleep all the time, Mama?  You sleeped last night, and you sleeped yesterday, too.
Me:  Well, zj. We need sleep to make us healthy and happy.
ZJ:  Mama, can I have some lunch?
Me:  It's 10 o'clock in the morning.
ZJ:  Well, I'm hungry.
Me:  Ok, here are some goldfish.  Mama is going to lay down on the couch for a little while, ok?
ZJ:  Why, Mama?  Can you read me a story?
Me:  Baby, Mama is going to go to sleep.
ZJ:  Can we play X-Men, Mama?
Me:  How about you lay beside me and I'll turn X-Men on tv, ok?
ZJ:  No, I don't think so.
Me: Ok, how about Max & Ruby?  Max & Ruby's on.  You can lay beside me and watch that, ok?
ZJ: No, I don't want to lay down.  Mama, is it time for you to go to work yet?
Me: No, I don't have to leave for a few hours.  Hey, how about a nap?
ZJ: Mama, are you going to drop me off and is Daddy going to pick me up?
Me: Yes, baby.  Mama will drop you off and Daddy will pick you up tonight.
ZJ: Why?
Me: Well, because I have to go to work, and Daddy will be off work before I am.  So he'll pick you up.  Let's lay down here, ok?
ZJ:  Well, Daddy didn't pick me up yesterday.  You picked me up yesterday.
Me: Yes, but that was yesterday.  Hey how about we go upstairs and take a nap in my bed?
ZJ: Mama, where's Cooper?
Me: Cooper's asleep.  Let's join him, ok?
ZJ: Mama, you won't fit in Cooper's bed.
Me: No, that's not what I meant.  Never mind that.  Let's lay down, ok?
ZJ: Mama, is it lunchtime yet?
Me: No, not yet.  Hey, how about you lay down beside me while I take a nap and you can look at one of your comic books?
ZJ: No, I don't think so.  Mama, is Daddy coming home soon?
Me: No, remember, Daddy will pick you up tonight.
ZJ:  Where are we going?
Me: Remember what we talked about?  Mama has to go to work.  I will drop you off, and Daddy will pick you up.
ZJ: Mama, why do you have to go to work?
Me: Well, I go to work so that we can have money to buy things and to pay for our house and our cars and our food...
ZJ: Well, you broke our big car some last week.  Remember?
Me: Yes, I remember.  I had an accident.  Ok, now let's lay down here on the couch.  Mama is tired and wants to take a nap before work.
ZJ: Well, I know where Daddy works.
Me: Yes, I know you do.  That's great.  Now come lay down, ok?
ZJ: And I know our address.  We live at 154 Hidden Court, Kentucky Vine Grove.
Me: Yes, that's right.  Hey, why don't you go down in the basement and play your Wolverine game?
ZJ: No, I don't want to.
Me: Hey, let's lay down together on the floor.  It will be fun.  Like we're camping.
ZJ: No, I don't want to.  Mama, can we call Granny now?
Me: No, we're not going to call Granny.  We are going to take a nap, remember?
ZJ: Well, I don't want to take a nap.  Mama, can we go to Chuck E. Cheese today?
Me: No, remember, I have to go to work in a little while, right after we take a nap.  Come here and lay down with me, ok?
ZJ: Mama, can you read me a story?
Me: Of course.  Go get the $^#* book, darling.

Very unfortunate post-nap hair photos.

Naptime really is the new happy hour. (With apologies to the author of that book, whose title I just claimed for my own.)

Now that I have two kids, I wonder what I used to do in all my spare time.  Because I sure had a lot of spare time.  I must have, because taking care of zj and cj take up 25 hours most days, yet I still manage to find time to brush my teeth at least a couple times every week.  Ergo, before I had kids, I had a lot of free time.  I guess, because I can't really remember what I did.  When I think back on the pre-kids era, it is all a bunch of fuzzy, beer-laced memories of reading books that have - gasp - CHAPTERS!  Oh, and I used to have time to get my hair cut at least a couple times a year.  Other than that, I'm not sure what I did.

But now, with two kids under age 4, naptime and bedtime are like the next water stop for someone running a marathon.  Don't misunderstand here, I love my boys, and I love playing X-Men with zj (even if I do have to be Blob most of the time),  and I love reading them stories, and coloring, but after a few hours of it, my brain is basically mush and I look forward to the chance to think about grown up matters, like leaky roofs, draft beer and facebook.

So maybe I occasionally fudge bedtime (they can't tell time, so what if it's 5pm, Mama needs a DRINK) by a few minutes.  Who's really counting?  My kids get plenty of quality programming attention, so why should I feel bad about occasionally wanting to do something for myself, like maybe taking care of the current unibrow situation?  But I do.  Feel bad, that is (and currently have a unibrow, for that matter).

Anyway, my point here, if there really is one, is that I love naptime.  It is currently naptime at 154 Hidden Court, and cj is sleeping like, well, like a baby.  Zj is at least somewhat subdued, if not asleep, and Mama gets a chance to blog a bit.  Peaceful, ain't it?